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CAN A NATION 
BE A GENTLEMAN? 



By Robert Stein 



Address Delivered Before the Third National Peace 
Congress, at Baltimore, May A, 1911 

(Revised) 



"The twenty-five million Canadians who will eventually live behind the Alaska 
Panhandle will constantly be forced to contribute to the enrichment of half a dozen 
American cities, while these cities will not contribute a cent toward Canadian taxes. 
What a permanent and ever-growing source of irritation 1 

"The only gentlemanly course open to us is to say to the Canadians: We are will- 
ing to let you have this coast strip; what will you give us for it?" 



WASHINGTON. D. C: 

JUDD & DETWEILER, Inc.. PRINTERS 

1911 



CAN A NATION 
BE A GENTLEMAN ? 



By Robert Stein 



Address Delivered Before the Third National Peace 
Congress, at Baltimore, May 4, 1911 

(Revised) 



"The twenty-five million Canadians 'who will eventually live behind the Alaska 
Panhandle will constantly be forced to contribute to the enrichment of half a dozen 
American cities, while these cities will not contribute a cent toward Canadian taxes. 
What a permanent and ever-growing source of irritation ! 

"The only gentlemanly course open to us is to say to the Canadians: We are will- 
ing to let you have this coast strip; what will you give us for it?" 



WASHINGTON. D. C: 

JUDD & DETWEILER. Inc., PRINTERS 

1911 






Au$ujr 
M>6 lfn 






ROBERT STE/N 
\ 335 F.Sft, Washington, D.C, 



CAN A NATION BE A GENTLEMAN ? 



Address delivered before the Third National Peace Congress, at 
Baltimore, May 4, 1911 (revised). 



BY BOBEBT STEIN. 



Mr. Carnegie and Colonel Roosevelt disagree on a number 
of points, but they agree on one point: that assured peace 
is not possible without an international police, consisting of 
the combined armies and navies of the strongest, most en- 
lightened and humane nations, best prepared by identity of 
ideals to trust each other, and least likely to abuse the police 
power. 

If Britain, France, Germany, and the United States would 
enter into an agreement for mutual benefit, the international 
police would exist ipso facto. 

Britain, France, and Germany cannot come to an agree- 
ment without mutual concessions. 

The best way to advocate the policy of mutual concessions 
is by example. 



That is my story in a nutshell, and I might just as well sit 
down and let these maps speak for themselves. However, I 
assume that you would like to hear a few details, ifffifu 9 uabjs 

The wisest man in England, Sir Harry H. Johnston, in an 
article entitled "German Views of an Anglo-German Under- 
standing," in the Nineteenth Century for December, 1910, 
shows that an Anglo-German agreement on the basis of mu- 

(3) 



tual concessions is practicable and imminent. A straw 
thrown in the balance may tip it in the right direction. 

The United States can throw that straw. Our nation is 
universally regarded as the natural leader in the peace move- 
ment. If we deem it our duty to accept that leadership, we 
can not shirk the duty of setting the example in that policy 
of mutual concessions which is the only avenue to permanent 
peace. Now we have at this moment a unique, incomparable, 
God-sent opportunity to show to other nations how a con- 
cession is made. To our neighbor, Canada, whose friendship 
we are just now so anxious to cultivate, we can make a con- 
cession which may just suffice, through the force of example, 
to supply the slight additional impulse needed to decide 
Britain and Germany to make the two vital mutual conces- 
sions pointed out by the wisest man in England. An Anglo- 
German agreement would inevitably be followed by a Franco- 
German agreement, also on the basis of mutual concessions, 
and then the international police would be complete, for 
everybody knows that the United States would instantly join 
it. Our duty to set this example is all the more manifest 
and imperative because the proposed concession to Canada 
involves no sacrifice; it is simply a question of putting an 
end to an absurdity. 



You have before you the map of Alaska. You see that 
Alaska consists of two parts: the main body and the Pan- 
handle, this strip of coast running southeastward to the par- 
allel of 54° 40', a mere ribbon, 536 miles long, 8 to 35 miles 
wide, shutting off the northern half of British Columbia and 
the entire Yukon Territory from free access to the Pacific. 
How large, do you think, is this Canadian territory thus de- 
prived of its natural seaboard? It measures some 600,000 
square miles, three times as much as Germany, more 
than ten times as much as England and Wales together. It 
has the same climate as Europe in the same latitude. In 



Europe, north of the parallel 54° 40', you find a slice of 
Ireland, a slice of England, all Scotland, all Denmark, 
Sweden, and Norway, all Finland, a slice of Germany, and 
the richest part of Russia; great cities like St Petersburg, 
with 1,700,000 inhabitants; Glasgow, with 900,000; Copen- 
hagen, with 500,000. An equal area in Europe in the same 
latitude contains 25 million inhabitants. 

This Canadian country has immense resources in timber, 
agricultural and mineral lands. The wealth of all countries 
is mainly concentrated in their ports — Boston, New York, 
Philadelphia, Baltimore — but it is derived from the com- 
merce of the country behind them. The wealth of this Ca- 
nadian country will necessarily be concentrated in its ports — 
on American territory. This entire slope is drenched with 
rain and possesses tremendous water power. The factories 
to be driven by that power will necessarily be on tide water — 
in American territory; but the reservoirs furnishing that 
power will be on Canadian ground. The 25 million Cana- 
dians who will eventually live behind this Panhandle will 
constantly be forced to contribute to the enrichment of half 
a dozen American cities, while these cities will not contribute 
a cent toward Canadian taxes. What a permanent and ever- 
growing source of irritation ! 

The only gentlemanly course, the only manly course open 
to us is to say to the Canadians: "We are willing to let you 
have this coast strip; what will you give us for it?" And if 
I had time I could show you that in exchange for it we could 
very likely get something far more useful to us than this 
absurd Panhandle, while the Panhandle itself, in Canadian 
hands, would be more useful to us than it now is. 

Reverse the situation and see how we should like it. 
Imagine that our northeastern States were cut off from the 
Atlantic by a similar Panhandle, a Canadian sidewalk run- 
ning from eastern Maine down nearly to Philadelphia; that 
all the great cities on that seaboard, Boston, Providence, New- 
port, New York, Jersey City, were Canadian cities, deriving 



their wealth from the American country behind them, yet 
contributing not a cent toward American taxes; that not a 
pound of freight could be sent from Pittsburg or Buffalo to 
New York or Boston for export, except in bond ! We should 
long ago have found the situation unendurable. 

We should in that case have been greatly vexed if the 
Canadians had waited in stolid silence till the situation did 
become unendurable for us, till we were forced to complain. 
Now you remember what the Model Gentleman said nearly 
1900 years ago: "Do unto others as you would they should 
do unto you." Shall we wait till the situation becomes un- 
endurable to the Canadians? Shall we force them to com- 
plain ? 

If we make the offer of exchange now, of our own free 
choice, its beneficent effects will be at a maximum. The 
heart of Canada will be linked to us as with hooks of steel ; 
a noble, generous national deed, more glorious than all our 
victories, will be inscribed in our annals; our example will 
be most effective in commanding the policy of mutual con- 
cessions to our parent nations. If we delay the concession 
till the Canadians complain, the memory of the concession 
will forever be soured by the reflection that we forced them to 
complain ; the effect of our example will be almost nullified. 



Suppose that the owner of this Panhandle were an indi- 
vidual. If he made the offer of exchange of his own free 
choice, we should call him a gentleman ; if he waited till his 
neighbor complained, we should call him a boor, curmud- 
geon, plebeian, philistine, or some other cacophonous name. 
The question then arises: Can a nation be a gentleman? 

In a letter from the late Prof. Thomas Davidson I found 
this startling sentence : "Nations are never gentlemen." You 
may have come across the same statement. One writer even 
attempts to prove that it is a sociologic law. A nation can 
not be a gentleman, he says. An individual can afford to 



be generous, to forego certain rights for the benefit of others ; 
a statesman cannot do this because the rights which he safe- 
guards are not his own but those of his fellow-citizens. 

What shall we say to this argument? First of all it is not 
absolutely true that nations are never gentlemen. The sur- 
render of the Ionian Islands by Britain to Greece was a 
gentlemanly act. The United States, in returning the Chi- 
nese indemnity, proved itself a gentlemanly nation. In this 
case our statesmen did not wait till the Chinese craved our 
leniency; they did not even wait for an expression of public 
opinion in the United States. They assumed that the ma- 
jority of our citizens were gentlemen ; that the foremost right 
of our citizens, which the statesmen are called upon to safe- 
guard, is the right to be gentlemen not only individually but 
collectively. The universal and enthusiastic applause with 
which their act was greeted proved that they were not mis- 
taken. 

It must be admitted, however, that national deeds like the 
two just cited are as rare as comets in the starry heavens. It 
would take a historian a week to find half a dozen national 
deeds that could be called gentlemanly. 

The reason is very simple. Most men are willing enough 
to be complete gentlemen in their individual conduct, but 
when it comes to collective conduct, they split: the positive 
gentlemen breaks away from the negative gentleman. For 
to be a positive gentleman as a member of a political body 
means to persuade others to adopt a certain line of action, 
and this means nearly always a fight. Now a gentleman, by 
his very essence, dislikes a fight, because to fight means to do 
unto somebody something which that somebody does not 
like to be done unto him. That fraction of the nation which 
is not gentlemanly always speaks promptly and loud; the 
gentlemen mostly remain silent. The statesman hears only 
the hundred voices of noisy protest; he dees not hear the 
silent approval of the pacific millions. That is the reason 
why nations are so rarely gentlemen. 



8 

Knowing the mosquito that inoculates nations with the 
malaria of ungentlemanliness, to wit, the over-pacific nature 
of the gentleman, it is comparatively easy to apply a remedy. 
If the gentlemen of a nation dislike to fight and yet recog- 
nize that they must fight in order that the nation may he 
gentlemanly, the natural thing to do is to look for some 
means to reduce the fighting to a minimum. Organization 
is that means. In union is strength. An army opposed to 
a mob has very little fighting to do. 



Organization, federation — that is the leading aim of the 
Washington Peace Society. I confess that in organizing the 
society my original object was to gain its support for the 
proposed concession to Canada. It soon aupeared, however, 
that some of the most influential men in Washington, while 
heartily in favor of that concession, did not think it wise to 
commit the society to any specific measures. The discussions 
at our meetings, however, brought out an idea of much wider 
scope, which will accomplish not only this but many other 
objects. It is the same idea that was so viaorously set forth 
by Mr. John A. Stewart in the Editorial Review for April: 
that the foremost need of the peace movement is the unifica- 
tion of all the immense forces available for peace work. Be- 
sides the peace societies, there are the thousands of churches, 
the Epworth League, the Christian Endeavor Society, the 
Chautauqua Societies, the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion, the Federation of Women's Clubs, the American Fed- 
eration of Labor, all working for peace. At present their 
work is scattered, desultory, like that of a mob. Organize 
them into an army, under a general and a general staff, and 
you multiply their force tenfold. And when this is done, 
the proposed concession to Canada will come as a matter of 
course. When all the ladies and gentlemen of the land are 
federated, it will be easy to take a straw vote, an anticipated 
referendum, on any question relating to the gentlemanly 



9 

conduct of the nation. Then we shall no longer have to rely 
on those inspired prophets who know precisely what the 
American people are willing or not willing to do. At least 
90 per cent of the people whom I did consult — and I con- 
sulted perhaps a hundred — gave ready assent to the proposed 
concession to Canada, and I have no doubt that the same 
proportion would hold throughout the nation. In other 
words, our nation is a gentleman, if we will only take the 
trouble to find it out. 

It was a pleasure to learn that a committee for the unifica- 
tion of peace work is already in existence, having been ap- 
pointed by the Lake Mohonk Conference through the influ- 
ence of Mr. Smiley. "When finally President Taft and Mr. 
Carnegie, at the very opening of this Congress, came out 
strongly in favor of federation, it could no longer be doubted 
that its success was assured.* 



Three more suggestions and I am done. 

We call ourselves a Christian nation. As such we profess 

* The movement toward federation came to a successful issue in 
the following resolution, adopted by the Baltimore Peace Congress, 
May 6, 1911 : 

Whereas, There has been a manifest need for a central representa- 
tive body which shall serve to co-ordinate the efforts of all the socie- 
ties in America devoted to the settlement of international disputes by 
methods other than war, as emphasized by the President of the United 
States at the opening of this Congress ; therefore be it 

Resolved, That this body of delegates declare that this National 
Peace Congress shall hereafter be known as the American Peace 
Congress ; that it shall be a permanent institution, which shall meet 
once in two years ; and that, while the Congress is not in session, its 
Executive Committee shall be charged with all the powers of the 
Congress : Provided, That said Executive Committee shall have power 
to reorganize by enlarging its numbers so as to become representa- 
tive, and after its reorganization shall elect its own chairman. And 
be it further 

Resolved, That said Committee shall adopt a form of organization 
which shall enable it to act as a clearing-house for all the societies 
represented at this Congress. 



10 

to be guided by the rule which, by the express declaration of 
its Founder, constitutes the essence of Christianity: "Do unto 
others as you wish that they should do unto you." Suppose 
once more that a Canadian Panhandle did sUut off our north- 
eastern States from access to the Atlantic, what would we 
wish the Canadians to do unto us? If we refuse to do like- 
wise unto the Canadians, we may baptize our babies in oceans 
of water, we may build churches as high as the Eiffel Tower, 
but we are not a Christian nation. Let us find out whether 
we are. 

In urging that we set the example in the policy of mu- 
tual concessions, I only referred to the effect it would have 
on Britain and Germany. In reality the effect would be far 
wider. Whoever has the slightest acquaintance with inter- 
national politics knows that the jealousy and distrust which 
keep nations armed are due for the most part to unsettled 
questions, unnatural boundaries, like this Alaska boundary. 
If European nations are to arrive at that state of mutual 
confidence and cordiality which will enable them to dispense 
with armaments, they will first have to make a number of 
mutual concessions on these questions. We can not tell them 
what these concessions should be, without running the risk 
of being called meddlers; but we can urge them by the most 
persuasive of all methods, that of example. Concessions 
would quickly become the fashion, for no nation would care 
to be called ungentlemanly. If we refuse to set this ex- 
ample, and yet continue to preach peace, we must not be 
astonished to hear the reply: "You Americans are all the 
time talking about peace and international goodwill, but 
when it comes to removing the causes of international illwill, 
you are just as regardless of your neighbors' feelings, just as 
stubborn as any of us in maintaining a geographic absurdity, 
a geographic atrocity, a thorn in your neighbors' flesh, simply 
because it is so nominated in the bond. Why beholdest thou 
the mote that is in thy brother's eye but considerest not the 
beam that is in thine own eye?" 



11 

At present the Canadians are not complaining, because the 
inconvenience is not serious so long as the country behind 
the Panhandle is practically uninhabited. But in a year or 
two the Grand Trunk Railway will be finished, and immi- 
grants will arrive by the thousands. By 1914, when we shall 
celebrate the 100th anniversary of peace wiih Great Britain, 
the inconvenience will have become acute. If we leave this 
unnatural boundary unchanged, it will hang like a pall over 
the festivities. The grotesque figure of the Panhandle will 
sit at the festive board like Banquo's ghost. If we wish to 
make that celebration a conspicuous landmark in the progress 
of the peace movement, what better means could we find 
than to relieve our Canadian neighbors of this nightmare, 
this thorn in the flesh, this standing discourtesy ! What are 
fair words when the deed is lacking? A body without a 
soul, a corpse in fine shrouds and flowers. Let us breathe 
into it an immortal soul, the soul of an immortal national 
deed. If we wish to have a real, joyous feast of good-fellow- 
ship in 1914, let us be good fellows. All Canada would come 
down to get acquainted with the nation that was courteous 
to her not only in words but in deed. Our parent nations of 
Europe would gaze across the Atlantic in admiration and 
envy, and would soon begin to say to one another: "See how 
gentlemanly the Americans are to the Canadians ! Let us go 
and do likewise." 



[11860] 



How the Alaska Panhandle Would Look on Our Atlantic Coast. 

" Imagine that our northeastern States were cut off from the Atlantic by a similar Panhandle, a Canadian sidewalk running from eastern Maine down nearly to Philadelphia • that all the oreat cities on that senhn.,,-,1 twt™ v rn „-j v 

New York, Jersey City-were Canadian ntn-s, deriving their wealth from the commerce of the American country behind them, y"et contributing not a cent toward American Cs: that not " pjm d o f f re I ,„ ^ ,,, ? ; 'p ! ' u "T:' H ^^1'?', i 

New- York or fju^rmi or c\i.ini rxirn 1 m bond " ^ ^ c l llul " iiusnui^or 1 ,nn.tl«. n, 



New York or Boston for export, except in bond!' 




SWCB °FTPP 




ALASKA PANHANDLE 

TRANSFERRED TO 

ATLANTIC COAST 

I I 



" We call ourselves a Christian nation. As such we profess to be guided by the rule which, by the express declaration of its Founder, constitutes the essence of Christianity : 

Do unto others as you wish they should do unto you. 

" Suppose once more that a Canadian Panhandle did shut off our northeastern States from access to the Atlantic, what would we wish the Canadians to do unto us? If we refuse to do likewise unto the Canadii 
"The only gentlemanly course open to us is to say to the Canadians: We are willing to let yon have this coast strip; what will you give us for it?" 



ve are not a Christian nation. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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017 297 617 7 




